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Unemployment rises to 5 per cent in FY16

The survey was conducted during April-December 2015 comprising of a total sample of 1,56,563 households, with 88,783 rural households and 67,780 urban households.

Touching a five-year high, India’s unemployment rate rose to 5 per cent in 2015-16, with females having the highest unemployment rate and lowest labour force participation rate (LFPR), both in rural and urban areas. As per the fifth annual employment-unemployment survey of households released by Labour Bureau, unemployment rate of females was at 8.7 per cent at all-India level, as against 4 per cent for males and 4.3 per cent of transgenders.

In urban areas, the female unemployment rate was estimated at 12.1 per cent at the as against 3.3 per cent for males and 10.3 per cent for transgenders. For rural areas, the female unemployment rate stood at 7.8 per cent in 2015-16 as against 4.2 per cent for males and 2.1 per cent for transgenders.

The Labour Force Participation Rate for females was significantly lower as compared to males at 23.7 per cent in 2015-16. Male LFPR for the same period stood at 75 per cent, while for transgenders it was 48 per cent.

The increasing feature of contractual work in the country was also reflected in the data, with about 77 per cent of the households having no regular wage/salaried person. About 64.9 per cent of the regular wage/ salaried workers, 67.8 per cent of the contract workers and 95.3 per cent of the casual workers did not have a written job contract in the country in 2015-16, the survey showed.

Around 67.5 per cent of the self employed workers had average monthly earnings of up to Rs 7,500 and only 0.1 per cent of the self employed were estimated to have earnings above Rs 1 lakh. Similarly, more than half of the regular wage/salaried workers at around 57.2 per cent had monthly average earnings of up to Rs 10,000.

Among states, Madhya Pradesh with 35.8 per cent households had the highest proportion with average monthly earnings not exceeding Rs 5,000, followed by West Bengal at 34.5 per cent, Uttar Pradesh at 30.1 per cent and Odisha at 29.8 per cent.

The data showed that about 24 per cent households benefitted from government’s employment generating schemes like MGNREGA, Prime Minister’s Employment Generation Programme, Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana and Swarnajayanti Gram Swarojgar Yojana among other. Only three Northeastern states, Tripura, Manipur and Mizoram, had more than 70 per cent of households that benefited from MGNREGA.

The survey was conducted during April-December 2015 comprising of a total sample of 1,56,563 households, with 88,783 rural households and 67,780 urban households.